Over the past week, the most intriguing news headlines I’ve come across include three shocking stories. The first one involves a 21-year-old young man from East Asia who tragically lost his life after challenging his followers to watch him consume two bottles of whiskey within 20 minutes. This flower vendor, who had previously consumed hand sanitizer in his dare videos, succumbed to heart failure in a hospital after alcohol-induced unconsciousness and vomiting.
The second story featured a 44-year-old Uzbek zookeeper who was torn apart by lions while livestreaming himself inside a lion’s cage, all in an attempt to impress his girlfriend.
The final headline revolved around a 17-year-old Turkish boy who was arrested after sharing footage of himself desecrating the Quran—first sitting on it and then stomping on it—to protest the death of a Turkish singer, Ferdi Tayfur.
While fame on social media can be achieved through various strategies, sustainable success largely hinges on the way content is created, the relationship built with followers, and the originality of the content. Achieving long-term success requires patience, creativity, and consistency. Building a follower base with unique and original content, maintaining consistent interaction, and producing high-quality posts are keys to sustainable success on social platforms. Such content not only fosters strong connections with the audience but also enables organic follower growth. Among these, originality stands out as one of the most critical factors in capturing people’s attention.
However, the dynamic expectations of social media users constantly drive the demand for fresh and unique content. This often creates significant challenges for content creators struggling to maintain regular originality. As a result, some resort to unconventional methods to gain fame quickly or retain their audience. While these methods may yield short-term results, they rarely lead to sustainable success and often have adverse consequences.
The three examples mentioned earlier highlight the severe consequences of such extreme content.
Fake interactions and manipulations have emerged as some of the easiest and quickest ways to gain fame on social platforms. Tactics like buying followers, likes, or comments may create an illusion of popularity but often fail to establish genuine connections with audiences and may even erode trust among real followers. Additionally, using fake accounts to comment, like, or share one’s own posts violates social media policies, risking account suspension or closure.
Aggressive, offensive, and provocative content also ranks among these rapid fame strategies. Harassing others, provoking controversy over values, or leveraging emotional manipulation to grab attention have become increasingly common tactics. While such content may initially draw curiosity, the novelty wears off, and creators are often forced to escalate their aggression to maintain relevance. Content clashing with societal values, promoting violence, hate speech, or extreme nudity often leads to legal repercussions or account bans by social media platforms.
Imitating other creators, stealing their content, or attempting to damage their reputation for personal gain also constitutes an unethical approach to fame. While these methods may generate temporary attention, they have not yet proven to deliver lasting success.
Finally, creating dangerous challenges, deadly games, or high-risk stunts for views carries severe ethical and legal implications. Such content often involves shocking and risky behavior to grab attention, violating community guidelines and leading to penalties from social media platforms. Furthermore, when viewers mimic such behavior in real life, it poses significant risks of injury or death.
Achieving lasting fame on social media is only possible through the right strategy and consistent effort. Patience, creativity, and originality lead to organic growth and build a solid, reliable reputation over time. Quick-fame approaches involving dangerous, fake, aggressive, or unethical tactics are usually short-lived and fraught with negative consequences. While these methods may appear successful in the short term, they often result in legal troubles, loss of follower trust, or even bans from social media platforms, alongside potentially life-threatening outcomes.